LETTER: Madison County should restore funding to county libraries

Madison County Supervisors must restore the funding their proposed budget takes from local non-profits.

The less than $400,000 in proposed budget cuts is such a miniscule amount compared to the overall $100 million budget, there must be another way to balance the budget. And while I would like to see funding restored to ALL of the non-profits, I would like to speak in particular to restoring funds to libraries.

My family has always used the library education and for entertainment. When my son was in school, the library was the place where he found information for his reports and the place where he could type up his assignments before we had our own computer. I see students doing this when I visit the library now. When I was taking online college classes, the library was often able to find and loan me expensive textbooks. Now we get our books, e-books, CDs, and DVDs from our library (the Sullivan Free Library) SEVEN DAYS A WEEK! When our computer was in the shop for several days, kept up with our email by using the library's computers. Along with many, I attend plays, movies, lectures, workshops and meetings at my library. What an incredible resource my library is to almost everyone in the community!

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Our libraries are worth more than any dollar amount can express, but here are two figures that may surprise you. According to the American Library Association, for every dollar taxpayers invest in public libraries, "there was an average return of more than $4 in benefits to patrons, the community and the economy."

In New York, according to the state Education Department, for every $1 in aid that the library systems receive, library patrons receive approximately $13 in services!

I bet there is no other group in the proposed budget that comes close to matching the return on our tax monies that libraries give us! Truly, as the saying goes, libraries will get you through times of no money, better than money will get you through times of no libraries.

If you cannot find another way to restore funding to our libraries and the other non-profits, I, for one, would favor a small tax increase to help restore this funding, particularly to our libraries. But if you find this untenable, please consider an option other than the complete funding cut that is on the table.

You are asking the best return on your money to fund 29 percent of the funding cuts, an unfair proportion, as there are groups in your budget that are receiving NO cuts at all.

While I have not yet seen the rationale for the cuts you are seeking to make, it seems that, absent a solid reason to do otherwise, why not share the burden equally by cutting ALL of the non-profits by 30 percent (which would come to $401,206, approximately the same amount of funding cuts that the proposed budget calls for now)?

I thank you for your consideration.

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